Pretend this is our den, kay? - Extras
by Survivah
Summary: As the title suggests, extra snippets from my fic, "Pretend this is our den, kay?" Mostly childhood sweethearts fluff. Sterek. AU.
1. Chapter 1

This is a collection of leftover snippets pulled from my larger fic, "Pretend this is our den, kay?" Naturally, I recommend you read that first, but all the context you really need for these is that Stiles and Derek have been together since they were fourish, Stiles has been living with the Hales since his parents died, Derek is a werewolf, and Stiles knows.

XXXXX

"Jeez, Derek, you're gonna put my eye out. Then I'll have to wear an eyepatch and be a pirate."

Derek rolled his eyes. "I'm good at knife safety."

Stiles huffed and leaned further into the hollow of the tree they were nestled in. Derek thought he was so smart, just because he was a whole year older than Stiles. He could act as superior as he wanted, but Stiles was totally going to rethink marrying him if Derek made Stiles be a pirate.

Actually, Stiles was pretty sure that he would enjoy being a pirate, but it was the principle of the thing. If Stiles was going to sail the high seas and get treasure, he was going to do it because he wanted to, and not because Derek mutilated his face.

"Do you have the flashlight?" Derek asked as he examined a stretch of bark, "I think I found a good spot."

The flashlight had mickey mouse ears, which were for little kids, but it was the only flashlight that Derek and Stiles could find in the Hale House that wasn't in one of the drawers that was too high for them to reach. Stiles turned it on and directed the beam of light at the spot Derek pointed out. The light illuminated all of the dust motes swirling around inside of their tree, but Stiles didn't care if the tree was dusty. It had been him'n Derek's den since they were little, (on account of how it was like a cave that wolves would sleep in, except made of wood instead of stone,) and you don't forsake your den because it's a little bit dusty.

Derek carefully dug the tip of the knife into the mossy bark. It made a crunching sound, and Stiles silently apologized to the tree.

Tongue poking out the way it often did when he was doing something difficult, Derek cut downwards in halting motions. The line that he was carving wasn't coming out very straight, it sort of wiggled around like one of those worms that Derek kept pulling out of the ground to gross Stiles out with. The curve of the "D" was also jagged, so the carving was a strange interpretation of the letter all around, but Stiles liked it. He was pretty sure that letters carved into wooden surfaces weren't even supposed to look good. It was like a rule or something.

"I like it."

"It looks stupid," Derek grumbled.

"You're stupid if you think it looks stupid. Now do the 'H'."

The next three lines looked better as Derek got the hang of the knife that was too big for his hand. "DH," clearly legible in the circle of light from the flashlight. Derek moved further down and started etching a "+" below his initials. It looked like uncomfortable work. Derek's arm was at an awkward angle, and since he wasn't werewolf-strong like Laura yet, Stiles could see that the motions were making Derek's arm ache.

"Here, let me."

"Ugh, Stiles-"

"It's my initials next, I wanna do 'em."

"But you don't know knife safety!"

"I was there when your dad explained it to you. I'm just not supposed to treat it like a toy."

Derek let out a long suffering sigh, then held out the knife to Stiles, handle-first like his dad taught him. Stiles took it, then scooted forward on his knees to take Derek's place.

The "S" came out jagged, like a backwards Z, but Stiles was proud of himself, since the bark had been threatening to crack the whole time he was etching in the lines, so Stiles was just glad he didn't accidentally calve off a big chunk of wood.

"Wait, Derek," Stiles began as a thought occurred to him.

"Hmm?"

"What do I put as my last name?"

It was a good question. Technically, the Hales had adopted him after his parents died, so he had their last name on most of his paperwork, but this wasn't paperwork. This was carving initials into a tree, and Stiles was smart enough to know that that was really significant stuff right there. His legal first name wasn't Stiles, but he still carved an S, because that was what mattered to him. It should be the same for his last name, right?

Not to mention, tree initials were commitment. The next time one of their friends came by to visit the Hale House, Derek and Stiles could show this to them, and then they'd know for sure that Derek and Stiles were serious. Those letters would be around for a long time, too, and Stiles didn't want to come back years later and think that he'd made the wrong choice of initial.

Because even though the Hales had been raising him for years, Stiles was born a Stilinski. He couldn't just ignore that, it didn't seem right. But then again, his last name was Hale, and even if it wasn't, when he married Derek, (in the future of course, they'd have to be at least sixteen, probably,) it would be. Did Stiles really want to carve in a second "S," then have to replace it when it became inaccurate?

Derek just looked at Stiles like he was stupid. "Put Hale. You're my mate, aren't you?"

"I guess so," Stiles mused. It sounded right, but also not right.

Then it hit him. Why bother picking just one?

So "SS" was carved into the tree, and Derek looked disappointed, but didn't say anything, just stared out the entrance of the cave sulkily.

Then Stiles brought the knife horizontally across the wood, then vertically, then horizontally, then vertically again. Derek heard the extra cutting noises, turned around, and stared.

"What is that?"

"It's a hyphen."

Years later, Stiles and Derek wandered through the forest behind the half-renovated confusion of the Hale House.

"Do you even remember where it is?"

"Give me some credit."

"I dunno, Derek, we've been wandering around here for a lot longer than it used to take to find the den."

Derek snorted.

"Oh you shut up. I know you still call it that in your head, too."

To his credit, Derek managed to keep his face blank. "Don't be ridiculous. We are adults, and we have a very nice adult den now. With furniture and everything."

Stiles rolled his eyes, then jerked his head up. "I smell it!"

"The hell you do."

"Sure, it's right there." Stiles leaped over a fallen log, grabbed a low hanging tree branch, and swung like a monkey to where an old, hollow tree held court, a gaping hole in its side that Stiles could crawl through. "I forgot how dark it is in here."

Derek squeezed in beside him, and they contorted themselves into a position somewhat conducive to comfort in the cramped space.

"Do you have your phone, oh prepared man of preparedness?"

Digging around in his pocket, Derek's face squinched up in concentration before he tugged out his dark blue cellphone, and switched on the flashlight.

Stiles smiled. "There it is."

D H

S S-H

"Warms your heart doesn't it?"

Since Derek could never admit to anything warming his heart out loud, he just smiled faintly and ran his ringed left hand over the clumsy incisions, memorizing them with his palm.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles ran a hand between Derek's shoulder blades. "So, here?"

Derek leaned back into the warmth of Stiles' hand, even though there were enough blankets on the bed that it was plenty warm already. "Yeah."

"Hmmm," Stiles leaned forward to press his face into the spot, "it'll be so weird. I mean, you know, it'll look different."

"That's the point." The tattoo was supposed to be a memorial. Memorials stood as a reminder that things were different, that nothing would be the same again, so deal with your changed world as you wish, but know it's here to stay.

Tracing a looping finger around the area, Stiles murmured, "you still thinking the swirly thing? The, um, triskele?"

Derek nodded, his hair mussing against the pillow.

"Three little curlique things," Stiles mused, "it makes sense."

It made a lot of sense. When the idea first occurred to Derek as he was picking up turnips, ("no, it'll be great Derek, I'll make a stew. A _stew_. Isn't that exotic?") at the grocery store, it came as a shock how much it made sense. Something permanent to commemorate the fire. It would hurt. Tattoo artists that knew how to deal with werewolves put wolfsbane into the ink, to counteract the healing process, and the pain too made sense. Seemed appropriate. And it would have to be something with a pattern of three. His father, his mother, his brother. Derek refused to consider another mark for Peter, who was still alive, damn it all.

They forgot, sometimes, living across the country from his hospital bed, but Peter's heart still beat, so he didn't need to be treated like he was dead just yet.

Flinging a leg over Derek's hip, Stiles leaned closer in, until the whole side of his face was pressing against Derek's back. He'd packed on extra muscle in the years since he'd been bitten, but Derek couldn't shake the feeling that Stiles was light against him, hollow boned like a bird. Force of habit from years of being careful not to snap something important left Derek with the permanent impression of Stiles being fragile. He had told Stiles that once, and Stiles just wrinkled his nose. ("I'm not a fucking hand-crocheted doily. You could send me through the washing machine and I'd be fine.")

Laura slammed open the door of their apartment a few days later. Without knocking, of course. No matter how many time she'd seen Derek and Stiles in compromising positions, she maintained that it was her duty as an older sister to never knock, and she would be loath to give it up.

Derek really hated her, sometimes. They could be in the throes of passion, and any small noise had him looking around frantically, making sure that there was no cackling sister in sight.

She flung her bag onto the kitchen counter. "Der-Bear, Stiley-wiley!"

"Stiley-wiley?" Stiles mouthed at him incredulously.

She climbed over the back of the couch they were sitting on, and plopped down right between them. Their furniture took quite a beating from her. Derek had never really noticed back in Beacon Hills, when their parents had been the ones replacing the furniture, but he sure did now.

"I was talking to Joey, from the DiSanto pack, up on the West Side," Laura rattled out as she scrolled through the notes section of her phone, "and he gave me the number of a guy at Forever Tattoo, on 31st, who can give werewolf tattoos. You have to talk to him special ahead of time, but apparently he's as good as you can get in New York. I'm texting you the number." Once her fingers finished flying across the keypad, she looked up at Derek seriously. "Joey said they they really do hurt. None of us have ever had wolfsbane poisoning before, but apparently it is not a cakewalk."

"I know."

"I can come with you, if you want."

"It's fine, Laura."

Laura snorted, miffed. "What is the point of being an Alpha if you don't do what I say? You have the blue eyes, Derek, I'm pretty sure that means you're supposed to listen to my every order."

"Technically," Stiles cut in, "you didn't make an order, it was an offer."

She sighed. "I suppose it still is just an offer. But Derek..."

"I'll be fine, Laura."

After she left, Stiles fixed Derek with a steely gaze. "I will be coming with you, and that _is_ an order."

Derek really didn't want Stiles coming along. It would probably make the whole experience less painful, but Stiles didn't need to see Derek get his back practically torn open with wolfsbane. One day, Stiles would get too much put on his shoulders, and it would crush the laughter out of his eyes, and Derek never wanted to see that happen. But Stiles also had that look on his face, and Derek knew that if he denied Stiles just then, he would be waking up cold for the next week, with the most disgustingly pungent Old Spice Stiles could find sprayed over the bed.

So Derek walked, accompanied, through the door of Forever Tattoo. It was... unexpectedly neon. Jangling K-pop chirped through speakers overhead, and where the walls didn't hold pictures of tattoos, they sported cartoon animals with disproportionate heads that danced around fantastical landscapes. Someone in a corner with purple hair was getting spongebob tattooed across their side.

A guy at the counter popped his head up when they walked in. Derek was surprised to find, as the guy briskly walked around the counter, that he was no taller standing than sitting.

"Which one of you is Derek?" he asked.

Derek raised his hand, then felt silly. He wasn't in school anymore, he didn't need to raise his hand.

"Hi Derek, I'm Derrick," smirked the guy, like they were sharing a joke. Derek didn't think he could find someone wearing a hoodie with panda ears on it unfunny, but apparently he could. "Mine's with an I though. And this is your friend..."

"Stiles. So you're his tattoo artist extraordinaire?" Stiles inquired, shaking the guy's hand.

Good. Let him talk. Derek was starting to feel nauseous, which he knew couldn't be from anything physical, so he was probably nervous, and Derek didn't like talking while nervous.

"Don't mind Derek here, he doesn't like to talk when he's nervous. So, Derrick with an i, where are we going?" Stiles asked politely as he squeezed Derek's arm reassuringly.

Forever Tattoo had a back room filled with big, clear tupperware bins covered with labels like "gloves," "sterilized wipes," and "extra pocky." It smelled overwhelmingly of sanitizing alcohol, but at least the caterwauling of electronic synth in the front room was somewhat muffled. Derrick led them around a small mountain of boxes to an extra tattooing couch, crammed up against the orange cement wall like an afterthought.

"I know, super sketch," Derrick plopped onto a small rolling stool, and propped one of his feet on it while he rummaged through a cart of supplies, "but if you start screaming, we want you out of the storefront. Go on, sit down, Derek with an E. And Steve, you can, uh, pull up some boxes."

"It's Stiles," Derek growled.

Derrick pulled on a pair of latex gloves. "Oh yeah? Where'd that name come from?"

Derek had never seen anyone act so chipper as they prodded around a cart of torture weapons. To be fair, he'd never seen anyone else prod around a cart of torture weapons, but he was still pretty sure that Derrick was a one of a kind brand of weird.

"Uh," Stiles was busy trying to find a box that looked like it could support his weight, "it's a nickname, or it used to be, before I changed my name when we got married. My last name was Stilinski, and my first name was a Polish name that was passed down in the family, but neither of my parents could pronounce. So. Stiles."

Derrick mused, "I guess as nicknames go, it could be worse. I was Ricky for a long time before I got people to start calling me Der-Bear."

Derek really didn't like the other Derrick.

"Oh stop rolling your eyes, Derek -with an E, not you Derrick. My Derek's sister calls him that all the time, and he hates it," Stiles laughed.

"No way, man. Der-Bear is an awesome nickname." Derrick's eyes glazed over. Derek wasn't sure if he wanted someone incapable of focus etching a permanent mark into his skin. "My girlfriend calls me Der-Bear all the time. It's great. You wanna see a picture of her?"

Stiles said he did, and Derek silently bemoaned his life choices from the couch as they cooed over a picture in Derrick's wallet. Derrick shoved the picture in Derek's face too, and Derek was greeted with a picture of a girl with an oversized bow in her hair, comically pursed lips, and two fingers held up in a peace sign by her face.

Derek also picked better significant others than the other Derrick.

The other two men chatted happily away while Derrick traced the outline of a triskele onto Derek's back. Stiles had just finished a story about the time that Derek, in high school, sprinted towards the bleachers in the middle of a lacrosse game to give a late coming Stiles a kiss hello, and then the team lost, because Derek was the lead defender and too busy making out with Stiles in the stands to stop the other team from scoring.

Derek was relegated to bench warming duty for the rest of the season, but still made better decisions than Derrick, who shaking a cylinder of ink mixed with wolfsbane. Derrick was a terrible, terrible person to choose a job that involved piercing dozens of tiny holes into people's skin.

"Okay," Derrick said suddenly, "I think we're ready to go. Stiles, does the positioning of the outline still look good?"

"Wh- oh, yeah. I didn't even notice you'd finished getting ready."

"Well," Derrick shrugged, rolling the sleeves of his panda themed hoodie up, "it helps to be friendly and chatty with the clients. Particularly werewolf ones, because you guys freak out and start clawing at me if I don't establish myself as a friend first."

Stiles got up to sit on the floor in front of where Derek, lying on his stomach on the couch, could see. "Is it that bad?"

Derrick grimaced. "Yeah... wolfsbane is nasty, and werewolves never seem to have any pain tolerance. I think it has something to do with them usually healing the second they feel any pain. They dunno what it's like to hurt, and then keep hurting. Anyhoo," he piped, switching the tattoo gun on with a whirr, "here we go!"

When Derek was eleven, he found a small bag of wolfsbane inside of a box in the bottom of his parents' closet. It was marked with a warning label, but Derek was eleven, and curious, and wanted to look cool in front of Stiles, so they took the bag, found a comfortable tree stump in the woods, and Derek stuck an exploratory hand beyond the ziplock. Bumpy red and black hives started sprouting immediately, and they ran back home, where Derek's mom ran his hand under water for a solid thirty minutes while giving him a few choice words about stupid boys who wanted to show off and be dangerous. ("You don't even have the 'everyone else was doing it' excuse, Derek. I'm really disappointed in you right now. Stiles, you too. I'm counting on you to be the brains here. Also, let go of his other hand, Derek'll need it to keep this compress on.")

That memory ran through Derek's head as the needle dug in right above his spine, and it occurred to him that a minor skin rash was nothing compared to having the stuff inserted directly into his skin. He was dimly aware of Stiles hanging onto his hands, his ring a cold weight against his palm, and a forehead pressing against his, but he mostly felt like shoots of the bamboo plant sitting across from him in a butterfly adorned pot were being inserted underneath his skin and left to stay.

"It's okay, it's okay," Stiles soothed softly after a while, "the center part's almost done, it's just the arms left."

Derek choked out into the leather of the chair, "the arms are most of the design!"

"Shhh, shhh, you've just got to focus on something else, alright?"

How was Derek supposed to focus on something else? His wolf was screaming at him to rip the tattoo gun out of Derrick's hands and then rip his head off of his neck. He was shaking so ridiculously that Derrick was bracing an arm against him to keep him still, and muttering something under his breath about how glad he was that the design wasn't intricate. Stiles shouldn't be seeing this. The sweat and the watering eyes and the pained grunts and groans didn't have a place in the oasis of calm that Derek and Stiles had hacked out for themselves across the country from their childhood home.

He opened his mouth to say so, and what came out was: "c-can't, Stiles. S'... everywhere."

"Trust me, okay?" Stiles bit reassuringly at Derek's wrist. "You can. Remember when I broke my arm in third grade?"

Derek groaned something in assent. The ambulance had whined and wailed outside the school, and there were so many well-meaning, but useless elementary schoolers gathering around Stiles' prone body, curled up and crying underneath the monkey bars, that when Mr. Griffin ushered Derek through the crowd to Stiles' side, Derek had been so overwhelmed he'd burst into tears right alongside him. Mr. Griffin, who had been hoping that Derek would be able to calm Stiles down so the paramedics would have an easier time, stood by helplessly watched the train wreck and kept looking around desperately for the paramedics to show up.

"Well, I was freaking out, and then I noticed that Mr. Griffin was freaking out too, and then I started wondering if maybe teachers weren't actually superheroes, which got me thinking about, oh, I think it was the episode of Spiderman that was on that afternoon, and by the time the paramedics showed up, it took me a second to remember why they were even there."

Stiles has felt like this before, Derek realized with a jolt. Felt these godawful fucking waves of pain that keep rolling and rolling through your body that never _stop_, the way that the pain curls around everything, until you feel like a block of clay with a wire wrapped around it, squeezing tighter and tighter. Until Stiles was bitten on that hotel balcony, he didn't feel pain like a brief distraction of sensation, something uncomfortable, but tolerable in its brevity. That broken arm, that cut he needed stitches for when he was fourteen- Derek's fists tightened as he realized exactly what Jackson had been doing to Stiles when he kept knocking him around in eighth grade. Those bruises, (while they probably hadn't felt like his flesh was sizzling the way Derek's was at the moment,) still stuck around for ages, and Stiles had been feeling it the. Whole. Time.

"Whoa there," Stiles ran a concerned hand across Derek's cheek, "why the long face? Now you just look sad, and that's even worse. Um, puppies! Puppies are happy. You know, I was talking to Erica over the phone and she was saying that she and Boyd were thinking about getting a golden retriever or something. You know, dogs equal less stress equals a marginal chance that Erica's seizures decrease a bit. Oh crap, seizures aren't happy. Um, Steph said that they're actually going to let her get her degree! How about that? Our very own Steph managing to make it through higher education. Sure, it took her two years longer than it took us, but by god, she's doing it! And, her latest squeeze has actually stuck around for about three weeks of... squeezing. Poor word choice, I grant you."

Then Derrick announced, "arm one is done," and Derek's pain came flooding back.

He let out a stifled shout, cut off when he muffled his face into the couch. It smelled like leather and accumulated sweat.

"Hey Derek-"

Cool hands running over his brow, a smiling face blurring into view.

"I ever tell you-"

Stiles. Stiles and the tiny smile lines barely visible around his eyes.

"-ran into that guy with the chewbacca hat again..."

Stiles, who could actually make it easy for Derek to not focus on pain.

One simultaneously physically and socially awkward cab drive later, Stiles was letting Derek lean on him as they stumbled through the doorway to their apartment. Stiles would have just picked Derek up if it didn't mean putting pressure on his back, but he couldn't, so Derek had to make do with being held up by Stiles' shoulder.

Most nights, Stiles marveled at Derek's habit of sleeping on his side, curled up, ("like you're still a toddler, Derek. No, no, it's adorable, don't move,") but that night, it really was the most practical position. He laid on top of the sheets and watched as Stiles bustled around, changing into his pajamas, ducking into the bathroom to brush his teeth, finger combing through his hair to work out any tangles. It was soothing, watching Stiles work through the old nightly rituals. Focus on something else.

When Stiles finished, he hesitated before climbing into his side of the bed. "Do you... mind if I take a look-see?" he asked, gesturing towards Derek's back, which was facing away from him.

Derek could still feel the burning itch between his shoulder blades, and a few cursory skims of his hand across the area gave him the impression that it was swollen, but he thought Stiles would be able to handle the sight, even if it probably was quite gory.

He was right. All Stiles said was, "it looks good. It will, at least, once the wolfsbane works out of your system. Derrick with an I knew his stuff," then pressed his lips briefly against Derek's shoulder and then flopped onto his side of the bed, tired and heavy.


	3. Chapter 3

Somebody commented and said that I should do a fic about Derek being jealous of Lydia, and I was like, "great idea!" and then I was like "but what if... and WHAT IF?" and here we are.

XXXXX

Derek and Stiles were not handling their separation very well. In Stiles' opinion, one of the many flaws in the California public school system was that eighth graders had to go to an entirely separate school from the ninth graders, one all the way across town.

Okay, so the across town thing was more of a problem with Beacon Hills than California as a whole, but Stiles maintained that the separation between middle school and high school was a terrible, terrible concept, one that deserved to be dragged out back and shot, if concepts could be shot.

He and Scott were on their own, braving the trials and tribulations of middle school all on their lonesome, without the advantage of cool older friends to make them look good. Stiles found out, with much irritation, that the only thing that had been keeping Jackson from making his life a living hell was Derek and his ability to intimidate. With Derek, Boyd, Erica and Isaac off at BHHS, Jackson was free to taunt, prod, and casually slam people against lockers as he pleased.

To make matters worse, with Derek's lacrosse practice, sometimes he came home so late that the only times Stiles saw him were in the morning, or very late at night when he slipped, tired and worn out, into bed. Derek growled in outrage and held Stiles close when he complained about Jackson, but there was only so much that the guy could do about it. Besides, Derek wasn't Stiles' bodyguard, and Stiles wasn't going to make him be. He was pretty sure that this was the part of the movie where he Came of Age by Standing Up To The Bully, anyway.

But Stiles was not equipped to stand up to the bully in the normal way. He wasn't physically fit enough to beat Jackson up by the flagpole after school, and got too nervous and awkward when Jackson started spewing insults to come up with appropriately cutting rejoinders. So Stiles decided that he needed to take the sneaky route.

"Heeeeyyy Lydia," Stiles drawled casually, sidling up next to her on the bleachers.

She looked at him questioningly.

"Stiles." He stuck out a hand.

Lydia shook it daintily. Her nails were painted bright red, probably with the blood of her enemies. "The same Stiles Jackson keeps talking about?"

Stiles winced. "I thought you two were off again?" If Jackson and Lydia had gotten back together, then his plan wouldn't be able to work.

"We are. And by the way, we are not 'off again,' we are broken up for good. I am never going near that jackass ever again." Lydia's face held a wrath that could probably scare off a flock of angry geese (that was saying something, geese were _nasty_.) "We just still run in the same circles." She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "He does not like you."

"Yeah," Stiles rubbed a hand across the back of his head nervously, "about that. I had an idea, see, and you are just perfect to help me carry it out." Flatter the beast, flatter the terrifying, terrifying beast.

Lydia just stared at him.

"Uh, well, I was thinking, you want to get at Jackson, right? Probably, I dunno. I bet. And I want him to stop being, uh, like you said, a jackass to me, so I was thinking that we should be friends, and then he'll feel crappy because you enjoy my company more than his, and then he'll also start thinking that maybe I'm not such a dork after all, because I can hang out with you, and you wouldn't go near somebody who was a dork, and does this make any sense? Because, you know, it did in my head, but now, saying it, it sounds stupid."

"You're right," Lydia stated. "It's a stupid plan."

Stiles heart sank as Lydia continued. "What we have to do is date each other. Then Jackson will be jealous of me and I'll have won the breakup, and you can impress him with your ability to get me to date you. He'll think he underestimated you."

"Uh, not that it isn't incredibly evil in its simplicity," Stiles said hesitantly, "but I'm sort of taken, see-"

"Oh, that Derek guy," Lydia flapped a dismissive hand, "it's fine. I'd want to hang onto all of that hotness too. What I'm proposing is that we pretend to date each other."

"Alright," Stiles agreed hesitantly. Derek still wouldn't like the plan, but he also didn't like the faint locker grating shaped bruises he'd found on Stiles' ribs last week, so he'd have to deal.

"Did he graduate?" Lydia asked idly as she watched the runners in the PE class finish another lap. "Because I really enjoyed watching him walk around school."

"Uh, yeah he did."

Lydia sighed, "Pity. I still picture him as Edward when I read the Twilight books."

Stiles resigned himself to the knowledge that it would be an uncomfortable next few weeks.

"Hey, why did Coach Miyagi let you come sit up here? Did you tell him you were on your period too?"

A very uncomfortable next few weeks.

"I haven't even had my period yet," Lydia confided cheerfully. "What? You're gay, I can tell you these things."

Hopefully she didn't see Stiles look up at the sky and mouth "whhhyyyyy?" or if she did, she was biding her time before she got her revenge.

So, Stiles may have just told Derek that he was "dealing with the Jackson problem with Lydia's help." And that may not have been entirely truthful. Stiles didn't like lying to Derek, didn't like lying to anyone really, but Derek wouldn't like to hear that Stiles was fake dating Lydia Martin even more, so Stiles engaged in some creative truth bending. It was an art, really.

Everything went swimmingly until Derek came to Lighthouse Middle School after the final bell rang, with the intention of surprising Stiles at the end of a long school day. What he found was Stiles, surrounded by a flotilla of the makeup wearing girls and the sports jersey wearing boys of the school, chief among them Jackson Whittemore and Lydia Martin.

The plan had actually been working quite well up to that point. Stiles had even managed to get Scott involved, which Scott had done delightedly, since Lydia's best friend was Allison Argent, so Stiles' Evil Plan coincided well with Scott's Ten Year Plan to make Allison fall in love with him. It was also surprisingly easy to "date" Lydia. He sat next to her during lunch, put his arm around her shoulder most of the time, paid her compliments, and that was it. After years of being deeply involved with Derek, and the associated hormones, Stiles was surprised to find that typical middle school romances were not very tactile, or at least not in public.

On that particular afternoon, Lydia was hanging off of his arm while Stiles talked lacrosse with Jackson, who was successfully managing to hold a decent conversation while also glaring at Stiles like he wanted him to explode on the spot.

"I'm just saying," Stiles tried to make his voice sound confident and masculine, "that you can defend all you want, but you're never going to win a game that way. Isn't that right, babe?"

"Mmm, you betcha," Lydia agreed vaguely. "He's so smart, isn't he Jackson?"

At first, Stiles thought it was Jackson growling, until Scott's nervous tugging on his sleeve made him turn around to find Derek, looking downright homicidal.

"Uhhh, gottagoguysbye!" Stiles squeaked before he was dragged off.

"They had a really rough breakup," he heard Lydia say quickly, "probably going to go talk it out. Who wants frozen yogurt?" That girl could patch up social faux pas like nobody's business.

An hour later, Derek paced the perimeter of his room, seething. "So, you've been fake-dating Lydia for weeks without telling me?"

"Well obviously, you aren't dealing with the news very well," Stiles reasoned from where he sat on the bed.

Derek groaned loudly and pulled at his hair. "She was all over you, Stiles. I mean, I thought I smelled her on you before, but I"m not very good at identifying scents yet, and I thought that I was overreacting, but apparently _not_, since-"

"Derek, Derek," Stiles cut in, "we're just friends, you know that right? Friends who are working in a joint operation to stop Jackson from attacking me."

Sighing, Derek ceased his frantic pacing. "I know... it's just, she's really pretty, you know?"

"Well, so are you," Stiles pointed out, "and you actually like me, and consider me to be more than a pawn in your elaborate revenge scheme. That's a bonus."

Derek directed sad puppy eyes at him. They worked better before he started growing into what was looking to be some ridiculously chiseled bone structure, but they still made Stiles feel all melty inside.

"Ah, just c'mere, big guy." Stiles held out his arms.

Responding with some impressive enthusiasm, Derek practically tackled Stiles backwards onto the bed. Stiles was glad they'd updated from the old racecar bed, because otherwise he'd be knocking his head against the wall right about then.

"Only six more months before you graduate eighth grade," Derek murmured into Stiles' neck.

Stiles thought they would make it through those six months just fine, until Derek walked into Stiles' room one day, then practically wolfed out then and there, before slamming Stiles against the wall.

"Stiles," Derek growled, his hands shaking where they gripped Stiles' waist, "why is there lipstick on your cheek? Stiles. Stiles. Can't... where... all over... smelling like... no no no-"

"L-Lydia kissed my cheek, she just did," Stiles stammered. Derek was licking at his cheek where trace amounts of Lydia's cherry blaster lip shine had been left. It must have seriously bothered Derek if he'd retreated into his wolf brain enough that he wanted to lick the taint away, like that was rational behavior. "It was r-really fast, I couldn't s-stop...mmmph."

Derek kissed like he was eating beef jerky, teeth adding to their already clumsy kisses. He was trying to prove something, to himself or to Stiles, Stiles wasn't sure, but he felt an awful lot like one of those tourists in Yellowstone that accidentally provoke a buffalo and end up getting chased down and gored. Derek being the buffalo in his situation.

He started tugging at Stiles' pants, which wasn't unusual, except that Derek was doing it with such desperation that his claws were coming out and tearing at the fabric, getting worryingly close to a rather important part of Stiles' anatomy.

"Derek, man, Derek just wait! Take a step off the crazy train for a sec! What are you even-" Derek's hands were running across every available inch of Stiles' skin, not even groping, just touching, like he was trying to spread his scent around- "are you _marking your territory_?"

Stiles shoved at Derek's shoulder, but Derek just held fast, sandwiching Stiles against the wall. "Mine."

"Fuck no!" Stiles shoved again. "Derek Mitchell Hale, you back the fuck up!"

The mention of his full name brought Derek out of his werewolfy stupor enough to make him stumble back a few steps and withdraw his claws.

Stiles was breathing heavily, angry and confused and horny in a way that didn't feel right. "You can't just... I'm not yours, alright?"

Derek pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes. "Is this it, then? Goddammit, I knew this Lydia thing would end badly."

"What? No. That's- I'm not Lydia's either. I'm nobody's. Because owning people is wrong. We learned that when we learned about slavery."

Derek looked up hopefully. "So Lydia and you aren't-"

"No. No we're not. What are you even talking about? She's insane. You know now she wants to get back together with Jackson? She's probably going to fake break up with me pretty soon, anyway."

"I'm really glad you're going to be fake broken up with."

"Well I'm really glad that the lacrosse team isn't going to state, so you won't have your stupid time consuming practices for much longer."

"Okay then."

"Okay." Stiles scratched his head. "We, uh, we really suck at going to different schools."

Derek snorted, "it's like separation anxiety or something."

"I'm pretty sure that's between a mom and her kid."

Derek looked uncomfortable for a second, and Stiles shifted around, fiddling with the shredded waistband of his jeans. "So, we were kind of doing something..."

The next week, Lydia and Jackson got back together. Stiles didn't even bother pretending to be sad. Or surprised, because let's face it, everyone knew it was coming. What was unexpected was that Scott and Stiles continued eating at Lydia's lunch table. Apparently, Phase One of Scott's Ten Year Plan had worked, and Allison was both aware of his existence, and talking to him enough that they could sit with her and it wasn't weird.

But it didn't really feel like everything worked out until Stiles stepped off of the auditorium stage six months later with a diploma from Lighthouse Middle School.


	4. Chapter 4

This is just aaaalll fluff. Normally I try for at least a semblance of meaning or plot, but no. Just cutesyness. Also, an OFC. I know, I apologize to my friends and family, but I swear she's not a love interest, and that you will get your Sterek.

XXXXX

It was a Tuesday morning, the sun was shining outside the apartment, and Stiles didn't have classes until 4:30 that afternoon. Basically, it was a good time for a long, leisurely walk to the coffee shop, and a long, leisurely breakfast with a pastry, chai, and a newspaper. Because Stiles was a cultured, big city university student now, dammit. He read the newspaper.

He considered waking Derek up and dragging him along, but Derek looked so peaceful, like a stubbly teddy bear with the blankets pulled up just over his head, that Stiles didn't have the heart to disturb him. Besides, he was with the guy practically 24/7, and contrary to popular belief, Stiles didn't mind getting some alone time now and then.

His phone buzzed as he was lacing up his boots.

"Stiles! There is my darling Stiles! How is your fine, well-rounded ass doing today?"

"Hello Steph. I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. And keep it down, you're going to wake Derek up and I don't even have you on speaker."

Steph snorted through the line. "He cannot possibly have hearing that good."

"You just don't have faith, Steph," Stiles retorted, glancing at the back of the apartment, where Derek lay up a set of stairs and underneath several blankets. "He's like a hawk."

"Mkay, fine," Steph replied doubtfully. "Anywho, Stiles, baby. Failing Economics in the Asian Sphere pretty righteously. Like, not kidding, great big F at the moment. Not even the fun kind of F, with the grunting and thrusting. Sooo..."

Stiles grimaced, but only because Steph couldn't see. Whenever she saw him making faces, she launched into a lecture about how he was being discriminatory towards people who didn't go to class. Stiles questioned her logic, but kept his faces to himself. Usually.

"Meet me at Crepevine," he sighed, turning a corner and nodding at their local Jesus Freak. "I'm walking there now. Also, it's a lot harder to aggravate Jesus Guy when I can't hold hands with Derek really obviously."

"I'd hold hands with you baby."

"That would defeat the purpose."

"Maybe your original purpose. I'd still get to feel up those sweet, sweet baby soft palms," Steph cooed into the receiver. "Oh! Speaking of which, Julia and Joseph? Totally into threeways. Called it. Didn't I call it?"

"You did indeed call it," Stiles acquiesced. "Okay, I'm going into Crepevine now, I'll see you in a bit."

By the time Steph clattered through the door, jangling the bell several more times than was necessary, Stiles had worked his way through the first four pages of the newspaper. Including all of those confusing "continue on page whatever" articles.

"Sorry," she held out her hands in a defensive gesture, "it takes forever to get the dreadlocks cleaned up in the morning."

"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of dreadlocks?"

Steph just shook her head and let out a long suffering sigh. "So. How are you, m'boy?"

"Wondering why you no textbooks or notes."

She looked around her person as though there could be school supplies secreted away in her tanktop, leggings, or the tangle of religious icons around her neck. "Oh noooo. I guess now we'll just have to shoot the breeze, old sport."

Restrain from making faces, Stiles. Restrain yourself.

"Stiles! What have I told you about judging other people's lifestyle choices?"

Oh well. Maybe Stiles could get one of those "you tried" stickers.

An hour or so later, Steph looked up from the cup of (Stiles') tea she had been nursing. "Yow. Don't look now, but somebody over there kind of looks like he wants to cut you into little pieces and make a fine souffle out of them."

Stiles glanced up. "Hmmm, yeah. Probably really dangerous."

Derek, who could hear Stiles from his spot in the line at the counter, had to put a hand up to his face to hide his smirk.

"Hot though." Steph craned her head around at an awkward angle, trying to get a look at Derek's ass.

Stiles knew she would get a good view, but still resented her for trying to see it. You couldn't take these things seriously with Steph, who humped anything that moved, but Derek was his to hump. The only humping Derek would be getting was good old fashioned Stiles humping.

"He makes the serial killer look work. Terrifying, but in a way that sort of makes your special places tingle. Oh god, oh god, he's walking towards us. Look innocent Stiles, innocent!"

She actually seemed nervous. Stiles didn't think he'd ever seen Steph genuinely nervous. He looked towards where Derek was walking towards them, wondering if she was really talking about him.

No, Derek was the only person walking their way. Just his usual Derek, eyebrows and all. Which... well, they did give Derek a stern expression most of the time, through sheer virtue of their thickness. And Derek's mouth, attractive as it was, was turned down at the corners by default. If Stiles squinted and turned his head to the side, he could see Derek having a serial killer overgrown stubble and leather jacket didn't help either. And why did Derek have to pair it with a gray shirt and black pants? Black was flattering, but not when it was the only thing you wore. Then it just made you look - oh.

Stiles came to the sudden and surprisingly conclusion that Derek was scary looking. Hot scary, sure, but scary looking. Stiles looked at Derek and saw the kid that would always give Stiles the apple slices from his hot lunch in elementary school, but strangers like Steph saw some kind of terrifying scowly guy that was clearly muscled enough to throw you through a window without a second thought.

Then Derek noticed Stiles watching him, and his eyebrows and mouth lifted up, and he looked like the cuddly Derek that Stiles knew and loved. Yay Derek!

Steph's eyes bulged out when Derek slid into the booth next to Stiles and kissed his temple. Stiles couldn't see, but he knew that Derek was doing that thing where his eyes briefly fluttered shut in bliss and he smiled a bit against Stiles' skin. And you call this fuddy duddy a serial killer, Steph?

"Oh," Stiles said, voice full of mock surprise, "have you not met Derek?"

Steph gave him a look reminiscent of a disapproving grandmother. "That isn't Derek."

Derek quirked an eyebrow, wrapping an arm around Stiles' shoulders before taking a sip of coffee. "Yes I am."

"No you're not. Stiles never stops talking about him, so I know that Derek likes to cuddle, gives Stiles piggyback rides places, once got a stuffed animal for Valentine's Day and genuinely liked it, and proposed when Stiles was just under seventeen, because he's a sap."

Derek looked incredulously at Stiles. "What about the Empire State Building?"

Stiles shrugged. "I liked the first proposal better, what can I say?"

Steph smacked her head onto the wooden surface of the table. "Oh my god Stiles. In all the time I've known you-"

"What, a month and a half?"

"In all the time I've known you," Steph repeated, glaring at him, "you couldn't have mentioned that he looks like Danny Zuko and Robert Pattinson's lovechild?"

"Why would I?" Stiles asked innocently as he octopussed himself around Derek's torso. "It's his soul that's the really beautiful part."

Then he leaned in and executed a perfect eskimo kiss. Yes. Brilliantly performed. Thank you, Derek for not just looking dubious and sitting completely still as Stiles had his nuzzling way with him.

Steph grabbed at her heart. "Oh my god. I don't know whether to puke vomit of disgust or vomit of joy. Are you two into threesomes?"

Derek stiffened, and Stiles patted his chest. "Naw, we're serial monogamists. Have I ever mentioned we've been together since I was four? Childhood sweethearts. We held hands on the schoolbus. Had matching backpacks." Not actually true, but Stiles was enjoying pulling Steph's leg.

The noise Steph made was something that Stiles suspected could be classified as a squee. He didn't know they could be made in real life.

"Can I just," she moaned, pulling her neon green phone out of some hidden pocket in her spandex, "take a picture of you two and put it on my blog? I can't even handle it."

Stiles surreptitiously checked Steph's blog that night, after he'd put Derek to bed (well, sent him into a post-sex coma. Whatever.) Underneath the familiar banner of a lolcat smoking a joint, he found three pictures of him and Derek. There was the posed one, where Derek was smiling semi-uncomfortably and Stiles was leaning awkwardly into the frame with a thumbs up and a hand on Derek's shoulder, then there were two that Steph had obviously snapped while they weren't looking, like the perv she was. In one of them, Derek had Stiles half pulled across his lap, and Stiles' head was thrown back in laughter, because Derek was tickling his stomach. Damn Derek for knowing all of his ticklish spots. Stiles had hoped that getting the bite would cure his chronic susceptibility to tickles, but no, apparently not. The last picture showed Stiles leaning towards the window, face overexposed with sunlight, and Derek watching him with a faint smile. The caption read, in a cursive, turquoise font: "Do you have any idea how much I would give to get somebody to look at me like this? The answer is ALL THE THINGS. ALL. OF. THE. THINGS."

Stiles closed the laptop and ran a hand over its sticker-covered surface thoughtfully before standing up and collapsing onto the bed, aiming so that he could bury his nose in Derek's throat.

Derek stirred. "Mmm... Stiles what?"

"Nothing really," he sighed. "Just... man. There's luck and then there's _luck_, you know?"

"I really don't."

"I just love you, alright."

"Alright," Derek mumbled, falling back asleep already. "Love you too."


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles was starting to have some serious doubts about Derek's facial hair. He could trace the problem to Derek's friends at work. They were a corrupting influence. Around the fourth day of no shaving, Stiles asked what was going on, and Derek shrugged and said that the guys all weren't shaving for the month, sort of a group morale thing.

Group morale is great. And Stiles is glad that Derek can bond with his buddies over their collective hairiness, but there comes a time when stubble becomes a pretty hefty beard, which Stiles would be fine with, if only it weren't on Derek's face.

BNSN, (Before No Shave November,) everything was hunky-dory. Well, everything relating to Derek's facial hair. They still had tedious jobs and Laura waltzing into their apartment at inopportune times and the vague sense of boredom that comes with having steady jobs and affordable rent. But matters relating to Derek's face? A-okay. Top notch. Ever since puberty hit Derek's hair follicles with a sledgehammer, the guy has been kind of furry, but Stiles has had time to get used to it. He learned how to avoid the stubble burn in awkward places, or how to get rid of it later if he didn't feel like avoiding it in the heat of the moment. The snowdrifts of shaved hair in the sink? They'd been sharing a bathroom for most of their lives, he could handle the tremendous mess Derek made whenever he went in there. Most importantly, the stubble made Derek look badass, which was handy when they were trying to convince the other New York wolf packs that the three person Hale pack was totally legitimate and not worth the trouble to usurp.

So the stubble was fine, until it reached critical capacity a few weeks into no-shave November and turned into a beard, then Derek walked into the apartment to give Stiles a brief heart attack. No biggie. He just caught sight of the leather jacket, sharp, downturned nose, and black beard, and, for a split second, thought that Derek's father had managed to somehow uncremate himself and show up in New York. Not traumatizing at all, no sir. Especially not when the George Hale lookalike gave Stiles a very handsy kiss hello.

"Nope!" Stiles announced. "Nope nope nope. The beard has got to go."

Derek looked faintly betrayed. "I thought you liked the beard."

Hoisting Derek over his shoulder (he'd never get over how much fun werewolf powers were,) Stiles made his way to the bathroom, climbing over their piles of discarded jackets, bags, and cluttertastic furniture. "I liked it when you were scruffy, but Derek-" Stiles set a miffed Derek down on the rug in front of the bathroom mirror, "look and tell me if you remind yourself of somebody."

Running a hand over his chin, Derek looked himself up and down in the mirror, shifting around, moving his arms to and fro, which made his chest muscles visibly move underneath his shirt. Stiles had never felt a more conflicted feeling of attraction. It occurred to him that if George Hale hadn't raised him, Stiles would probably have found him as attractive as Derek, then he shuddered internally.

"I'm not really sure what you're talking about," Derek mused, "care to fill me in?"

"You look like your dad!" Stiles burst out, "And it sort of looks good on you but it also makes me feel practically incestuous and also you look ten years older than me and also it needs to go."

Derek's eyes bugged out. "I see it now." He looked mildly shell-shocked.

"So it's going?"

"It's going."

"Thank god." Stiles started pulling out their shaving cream and Derek's razor from underneath the cabinet. "Not that the Paul Bunyon look was bad for you, especially since I'm not sure there is a bad look for you, it's just, you know-"

"I know."

It had been years since the fire, but Stiles was learning that it wasn't the sort of hurt that went away. Derek seemed to have understood that much earlier than he did, and embraced it, getting a tattoo on his back and brushing a hand over the urns on their side table each day before he left, but Stiles kept hoping the ache would go away. With his own parents, their loss eventually felt far removed from him, their absence something that he missed in theory, but with the Hales, who had raised him for far longer than his parents had, whose house he had his first kiss in, whose shoulders he cried on, whose son he married, Stiles felt the loss every day, a sharp pang in his gut that he pushed away to function, but was there nevertheless.

So Stiles shaved the beard away, because the last thing he needed was a visible reminder of the people who should have been there, but weren't. Also because he liked shaving Derek. He was fully capable of shaving on his own, but Stiles got a kick out of having an excuse to feel up that carved jawline for an extended period of time. He remembered when it had been rounded and soft with youth, and Derek's cheekbones weren't mountain peaks, and he didn't get stared at on the street. It gave Stiles a certain satisfaction to know that he had loved Derek before any of that.

The last bits of beard came off drowned in shaving cream, and Derek ran an appraising hand across his jaw. "Feels good." He abruptly grabbed the sides of Stiles' face and pulled him in for a kiss. "Not scratchy?"

"Smooth as a baby's bottom."

Derek observed, "now my face is cold."

Stiles sighed. "It's times like this I miss California. It was plenty warm. You could go swimming in November."

"No you couldn't."

"I know we couldn't. I was exaggerating to get my point across."

It was something to think about, though. New York wasn't the greatest. Sure, there was food available twenty-four hours a day, and some very... interesting characters to be found, but was it home? Stiles sincerely doubted that New York City was home to anyone.

Maybe it was time to think about moving back home.

XXXXX

That little drabble was the last bit from this 'verse that will be published in the forseeable future. I'm afraid I'm moving on to bigger (and hopefully better) projects. Thanks for taking this ride with me!


End file.
